


Chronicles of haunted house: the heretic, the hybrid, the dead original and the cat

by ArrenEmris



Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Caroline is a heretic witch, Deal with a Devil, F/M, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Kol is a ghost, Witches, mentions of murders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28619667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArrenEmris/pseuds/ArrenEmris
Summary: Caroline had a lively house full of dead witches, a ghostly capricious cat who loved to eat steaks, and Klaus, whose magic was sweet on her tongue.
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	Chronicles of haunted house: the heretic, the hybrid, the dead original and the cat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Austennerdita2533](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Austennerdita2533/gifts).



> Originally written for Klaroween and for Ashlee Bree.  
> Huge thanks to Cristy for betaing <3

The house was old.

It must have been built a century or two ago, Caroline decided, looking at the once rich, blue color of the walls, from which the paint, now thickly overgrown with ivy, was crumbling. Nobody had lived in it in for so long that the window glass trembled as she looked into the dusty windows.

“Hush hush. I’ll stay here,” she murmured. The keyhole was rusted and Caroline looked questioningly at it before producing the copper-colored key from her pocket,. She turned it, hearing a loud click as the door slowly creaked open.

“Thank you,” Caroline sucked in the dusty air and with her fingertips gently stroked the doorknob. The house was practically purring, forcing her to smile for the first time in recent days. She had not lived in a house with character for a long time.

She was sleepless the first night: the clocks in the hall downstairs and in the corridor on the second floor were ticking loudly as the lights flickered unexpectedly throughout the house. Upon waking the next morning, Caroline found inexplicable scratches on her knuckles and was instantly curious as to their origin.

She knew that this place once belonged to Kol Mikaelson and the unbearable character of the original could well be transmitted to the house. She also knew that he was partial to cats and had kept numerous at different times and in different places over his long life.

“And where are you, bad kitty?’ She asked, going down the creaking stairs. It had to be the only explanation.“ Good kitties don’t scratch sleeping people”.

Elena had always been amused by the fact that she was allergic to cats. They discovered this when they were about five years old and it was time for them to choose their own familiars. Caroline had reached out to a furry, snow white cat and had ended her day scratching her throat to blood.

Damaged witch, Elena called her that for the first time. In response, Caroline tore out a tuft of her hair and Miranda Gilbert threw a tantrum as if she tried to murder her precious child with a snake sting. Well, perhaps I should have murdered her then, Caroline thought absently, perhaps it would stop Elena from sacrificing her entire coven.

“There you are,” the ghost of a cat brazenly lounged on the kitchen table.

Caroline didn’t know how this lovely thing looked in life, but it most of all reminded her of a cat from a fairytale that her father patiently read to her in the evenings: the one that dared to look at a king, white and porcelain, painted in blue and green, with a precious necklace that a fairytale queen once awarded her.

“I doubt you are that cat, of course, but very similar,” Caroline confessed, stretching her fingers towards her. She didn’t have allergies to astral spirits - although sometimes she wished she had, look at Mikaelsons, who could be dead or alive, but still splinters in her ass - so she watched with a grin as the cat spread out, purring so lovely.

The ghost cat should be laid to rest or dispel. But the damaged witch should have a damaged cat, Caroline decided, watching her shimmering white fur. It was a pity to get rid of her, and as for scratches, they would heal. Sooner or later, but all wounds and abrasions heal.

“If only I knew what your name was,” it was a bad omen to give a name for a dead spirit. So the cat remained just a cat, and it never hurried to respond, only looked arrogantly at the witch with her bright green eyes.

Life here was quiet. Not what Caroline wanted for herself or dreamed about, but sometimes such seclusion was the best way to collect thoughts. And strength, if one has it. Her neighbors greeted her politely in the mornings and, perhaps, they did not believe in the legend about a granddaughter who inherited the decrepit house from her crazy grandmother, but no one hurried to ask her. Here, unlike Mystic Falls, nobody seemed to care about anyone, and Caroline was more than satisfied.

In the end, she was here not only because she wanted to collect her thoughts and think about what happened, but because she had a mission. Probably even a Mission, with a capital “M”, because …

Remember the devil, Caroline groaned inwardly, when she heard heavy footsteps in the living room and listening as he threw down some bourbon, settling in her favorite chair. However, he was here and he owned this place, and with a fake nobility - it was hardly peculiar to inherent bastards - and gave her a roof over her head and protection.

“We made a deal, little witch,” she heard his insinuating voice. His accent that came from the times of blood and ancient magic, sounded so thick and it made her shudder a little, but she did not turn around.

Kol, now leaning against the doorjamb behind her stood, she could tell he was grinning at the irritation he was causing to cross her face.

“Stop breathing in my ear, and then maybe I can finally do something,” Caroline replied, forcing the younger Mikaelson to give a low chuckle.

“Well, now I’ll definitely have something to brighten up the days before my return, dear Caroline,” she rolled her eyes, thinking that if he was so unbearable after death, it’s scary to imagine what he was like in life.

Klaus suddenly appeared behind her grinning too, she felt it through her skin, and a sweet foreboding that cramped her fingers. The fact he chose not to comment spoke volumes. Klaus knew Caroline was perfectly capable of holding her own. Just like his sister Rebekah, she was the strongest person he knew.

Caroline could feel his pride radiating from this close proximity. She’d lost confidence at times due to Elena’s meddling in her life. Elena always brought troubles, but Caroline knew how to take advantage of them now.

***

The steak was slowly roasted over the fire, while Caroline thoughtfully split apart a sprig of rosemary, which, however, did not smell.

There was a butcher shop in the town, almost the same as in Mystic Falls. The butcher of this town was talkative, unlike Mr Morris in Mystic Falls, but the smells of blood and raw meat, her favorite sausages and dried beef were almost the same as at home, so she allowed herself a moment of nostalgia, promising herself that she would drive to a supermarket later.

There was also a sad pig’s head in a transparent container. Well, anything in that situation would be sad, Caroline thought, and the pig’s head told her that it was a special order for some kind of celebration. Caroline sympathized while the butcher turned away to pack her order.

“Are you the lady who now lives in Mrs. Stewart’s ruin?” The butcher inquired, while Caroline was looking for a twenty dollar bill in her wallet.

“Yes, that’s right,” murmured Caroline, pulling out a bill.

“Isn’t it scary to live there?”

Is it scary for me to live in a haunted house with a ghost of an original vampire, a dead cat and a periodically wandering original hybrid? Caroline barely restrained a malicious smile.

“Sometimes, when the floorboards creak at night,” she told in a whisper to the butcher, who leaned over her counter to her confidence. “Then - yes, it’s a little bit scary.”

“So, do you plan to stay with us long?”

Caroline looked from the sad pig’s head to the pink-cheeked, chatty butcher. He had a simple face, ingenuous eyes, not even a drop of magic. But because of how this question was asked, for some reason, her hair on the back of her head stood on end, like the time when Elena decided that it was a great idea to invite a vampire to the house.

“Probably, until the wind changes,” Caroline shrugged mysteriously, slipping out of the store with her purchases.

And now the steak, hissed and spat butter, but wasn’t roasting the way she preferred. Although annoying, she chose not to address the meowing cat and Kol’s usual, sarcastic comments until he pulled on her last nerve.

“She is meowing because she is offended,” Kol told her when she picked up the cat by the scruff of her neck.

“Or the fact that dead cats and ghosts, in general, eat things they shouldn’t?” Caroline asked and suddenly dropped the cat from her grasp. Dead or not, it scratched just fine.

“That was rude,” remarked the original, slightly flaring his nostrils. “You might like to remove the steak from the fire to avoid burning it and ruining it for everyone.”

The cat continued to stare at her with indignation, while Kol looked like she was a bag of hot fresh blood, and Caroline, unable to bear it, knocked her fist on the table. The house thundered and the pan seemed to just disappear. Together with her steak, on which she spent so much money, into his greedy hands.

Although she was starving, it was totally worth watching as the cheeky cat stole pieces of meat from a scowling Kol Mikaelson.

And then came the dinner, that she needed even more than the real food.

There were many legends about hybrid Klaus Mikaelson, all of them cruel and bloodthirsty, and while listening to them, Caroline imagined an ugly monster. But a man she met a few weeks ago hid his monster behind a wolfish smile and dangerous courtesy.

The magic that surrounded him was so ancient and strong that Caroline, at their first meeting, involuntarily reached out for him and was not at all frightened when he approached her too closely, violating her personal space. The hybrid might have expected her to cringe under his gaze and her heart would beat for fear, but Caroline only smiled dreamily, feeling the heat of his magic, and even reached out and touched his hand, wanting to feel him more.

“You are the heretic that Kol needs?” Caroline heard snarling notes in a deceptive soft voice and she looked into his blue eyes. They were reminiscent of a changeable sea across the seasons, she could make out amber specks and a hidden wolf, feeling the desire to see him in true form and stroke his fur.

“Yes,” she answered calmly. “And if you want me to bring your brother back, I need your magic.”

“My magic,” he baulked.

“We all have a little magic in us, Mr Mikaelson,” she offered. “If you insist on burdening me, the least you can do is stop whinging.”

She regarded him closely, he didn’t growl or threaten her, he just smirked, followed by the flash of a disarming dimple in his left cheek. Caroline, who knew him only from legendary stories and thought that he would rather break her neck than allow the heretic in her to feed on his hidden magic, was surprised when he pulled her into his arms and slyly uttered: “Have at it, sweetheart”.

Several weeks passed since their first meeting, and Caroline still couldn’t say that she fully understood who he was. However she heard a telephone conversation with someone he called Elijah, and who gently admonished him to go back home and abandon his mission.

“We haven’t had a home for so long, but we do now,” Klaus answered, and that was all that Caroline needed to know.

“Come here, love,” he invited her, enticingly. The hybrid habitually settled in her favorite chair by the fire and unlike rosemary, which refused to smell, she was drawn by a spicy trail that was spinning her head a little.

Like the magic that was so ferociously seething in his veins.

In his arms, dangerous and hot, she ran her nose to his neck, feeling his muscles tense and how he held his breath. Probably, Caroline thought, after so many years, the pleasure can be found even in the strangest pain, and dug her fingers into his forearms, continuing to greedily drag in the smell of spicy blood that was on his breath.

She shivered all over with goosebumps, from the top of her head to her toes. Her head began to spin and she pressed her forehead to his shoulder, trying to find some grip and surprised that instead of weakening or hissing the curse through his teeth, he stroked her bare back rhythmically beneath her white shirt.

“It was like a bite,” Klaus teased in her ear later, when she finally sank into sleep from her satiety, “from a toothless kitten who decided she is a lion.”

Her eyelids were too heavy, and her tongue was slow in her mouth, but she firmly decided to prove to him later that she really had teeth and they could do real damage if provoked.

There was no reason just to show them yet.

***

The water in the shower was icy.

No, maybe not icy, but very, very cold, and after sleeping in a warm cocoon of magic and a duvet silk blanket, the water seemed to be unrelenting, and, under the ghostly cat’s disapproving gaze, Caroline tried the water with her fingers, sighed, and bravely dived under the shower with her head.

Ten minutes later, miserable and trembling, she sat in the living room, wrapped in a blanket and warming her fingers on a cup of herbal tea. At her questioning glance, Kol merely smiled crookedly and then said that Klaus would send someone to repair the boiler.

He’d better after that toothless remark, she smiled despite the cold surprise.

The thought of Klaus made her remember the taste of his magic and Caroline ran the tip of her tongue over her plump lower lip:. stronger than she could imagine, judging by how obedient her magic was. She could still taste his spicy sweetness.

She didn’t want to talk about it out loud, she had enough of Kol’s self-satisfied smirks or his “I warned you, darling” nor did she want to think on “And what it would be if I would have listened to Kol earlier,” so Caroline just dismissed those thoughts.

Such thoughts were similar to the games she had played with Elena and Bonnie as children, when they played princesses or chose the next all-powerful covenant regent between themselves - and she always held her breath and clenched her fists when the flower wreath fell on her light head - but games always remained games and had nothing to do with reality, as well as thoughts that eat and force people to experience feelings of guilt and regret over and over again, did not carry anything practical or useful in themselves.

Therefore, she finished herbal tea, trying not to think about how come the hybrid knows how to boil a warden, wormwood, and common knotgrass without rancid wormwood taste and went to the back yard. Here the ground was different and Caroline laid her palms on the wet soil, acutely sensing the blood of others and the thick curtain of magic. Twelve lives in exchange for one, there was no pity or prudence in the arithmetic of originals.

Behind her, the house creaked and she turned around, feeling the warning glance of the dead eyes of the house.

“Who did you kill to build this place?” She asked Kol, who almost gently touched the sun-heated tree, not having, however, no opportunity to feel the sun’s heat.

“You are asking the wrong question,” the original snapped his tongue, smiling at her, and the witch’s face stretched in amazement.

“You don’t …?”

Kol just grinned and spread his hands innocently, as if surprised at such a naive and stupid question, and Caroline thought detachedly that she should get used to the fact that in the world of these creatures everything happens in some kind of super-egoistic level, where there is no balance of magic, nor the consequences of such decisions.

And somewhere inside, where she had a worm-hole since her very birth, she felt the satisfaction of knowing that.

“And who was it? Who have you buried alive under this house?”

“There was one coven of witches … a very annoying one. They refused to help me once, twice, and I decided that this way or another, I would succeed nevertheless,” Kol said nonchalantly, following her with a sharp look. Her blue eyes brightened and she looked at the wooden walls differently. In order to come to life, you needed to die, one of the invaluable rules to which even the originals obeyed, and now behind one of them stood a whole house, alive, yearning and lonely, a cage for a dozen witch souls who dared to anger him only by refusing to help.

It was power, purplish-red, selfish and cruel, but still power, backed by a fair amount of strength and desire, and it attracted her, causing the wormhole to become deeper and darker.

“I’ve been saying for a long time that you’ll like it here,” Kol purred, and his whisper lay on her shoulders with silk caress.

Caroline twitched, trying to throw off the sweltering and choking mirage, suddenly keenly realizing that even being dead, Kol had a far greater share of power than she used to think as a wry smile distorted his handsome face. He opened his mouth, but there was a rumble of doors and flooded by the sun, Klaus appeared.

He had a bag in his hands and an already strong aroma of decomposition, made Caroline realize whose body he had brought to her. Klaus always seemed to be intuitive but she saw in him a sudden and tenderness moment of care with which he lowered it to the ground.

“Everything you asked for, love,” he said, watching her kneel and unfold the bag, without wrinkling her nose.

“Perfect,” Caroline whispered looking at the remains, without any disgust, and vividly remembering that night, which was not only the end of a thousand vampires, but also her coven.

“You two have very weird gift ideas, remind me come Christmas time,” Kol joked easily returning to the mask of the eternal hellion and trickster. “Even in a very literal sense”.

She smiled dryly, but turned her eyes to Klaus, who had been impatiently looking at her. Beautiful eyes, she noted to herself, touching her lower lip with a tip of her tongue.

“I asked for something else too” she reminded him calmly, without fear of him at all. The hybrid’s plump lips adorned with a bloodthirsty smile.

Damon Salvatore’s head fell on the grass and only when drops of Damon’s blood stained at her bare knees Caroline grimaced in disgust but with equal parts excited.

“You could have asked for anything,” Kol settled on the half-rotten steps that led to the backyard, and now was watching how Caroline put her palms in a bowl of blood and drew the runes on the ground. “Absolutely everything, nothing is impossible for Nik. Instead, you asked for the head of a loser vampire, Care Bear?”

“I don’t think he’s such a loser,” the witch frowned a little. “His plan worked, and you were killed back then.”

Kol and the surrounding walls groaned mournfully, but Caroline didn’t flinch.

“Caroline,” warned the younger Mikaelson and a sharp, cold wind sparked the flicker of numerous candles.

“He deserved his ultimate fate,” Caroline replied, getting to her feet. “Yes, I wanted to be a regent, but my coven is dead. I wanted to be a strong witch, but you know very well that they call me damaged,” she shook her hands off the soil and looked in the direction of the ghost. “After all, the head of my enemy and the magic of your brother are a fair price for my life and your return. Besides,” she paused and suddenly smiled slyly. “His magic is sweeter than yours.”

“I’m very glad to hear this,” Klaus’s voice came from the gloom of the house and Kol noticed how the witches’ cheeks flared. “It’s your dinner time, sweetheart.”

Kol rolled his eyes and vanished. Caroline, taking a deep breath, took a few steps forward. She thought that the souls of the unfortunate witches, imprisoned in the walls of this house, could curse her. She thought that her coven was destroyed by Elena’s stupidity and a vampire that was born from Mikaelson blood and instead of feeling at least a bit of disgust, she was enjoying it all too much.

When she came to this house, Caroline was going to make lemonade from those lemons that life gave her. Survive, for example, even if she had to make a deal with the devil. Or to return into the world of living, and whose paranoid mind came with a plan of eternal survival.

She wanted to take revenge, though not with her own hands. She wanted to get drunk from someone else’s magic, even if it was bitter with someone else’s blood. Nobody warned her that one could get used to it so much, that a hybrid’s hot embrace will give goosebumps, that it will be too easy to get used to within the company of a dead original and one dead cat.

Caroline slipped into Klaus’s arms, habitually touching the brackish skin of his neck with her lips, wondering if his blood could be as engaging as his magic, and the hybrid smiled, running a hand into her hair.

“You can still be a regent,” he remarked, listening to her deep breathing. “There is a vacant position in New Orleans, love”.

“Are you trying to say you need someone who would be loyal?’ She chuckled, putting a palm on his chest. “I promised to return Kol from the other side, I did not promise to become your pet witch.”

Klaus’s face twisted in a painful mask when Caroline thrust her claws into him, greedily sucking out his magic, but he almost immediately came to himself, squeezing his palms at her waist. Caroline did not even flinch, continuing to absorb him, and Klaus even smiled wryly, paying tribute to her charming greed.

A few minutes later she went limp in his hands, full and satisfied, and the magic sparkled at the tips of her fingers. The hybrid pulled her close to him, removing the blond hair from her face, and looked into her foggy eyes that were clouded with lust.

“What are you going to do after you return Kol?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe I’ll go somewhere else I haven’t been.”

“You haven’t been to New Orleans yet,” he recalled, and the witch smiled, finally looking up at him.

“It’s true. But I’ll be in danger there. Witches despise heretics like me.”

“You don’t have to worry about your safety while I’m with you.”

She decided to give him that dream for the moment knowing she could well and truly defend herself and kick ass if necessary. And life here wasn’t too bad.

Caroline, with her head thrown back, fixed her gaze on the sky, letting her thoughts lazily slip in her head. The shadows were moving too fast, the forged railings moaned plaintively, the window on the second floor was flung open by the wind, and twilight was gathering in the garden, from which the flame of her candle grew brighter. Kol, who had reappeared, looked at her expectantly and she only nodded in response.

This night she had to keep her word for two immortal vampires. After, perhaps, when she stays alone in the ghostly haze of the morning, she can look into the ashes of the sacrificial fire and see roads of her destiny. Perhaps the bloody runes with which she sprinkled the earth would prompt her what to do next, perhaps one day her hunger and her curiosity would bring her to New Orleans, to the possessive embraces of her hybrid.

In the meantime, she had a lively house full of dead witches, a ghostly capricious cat who loved to eat steaks, and Klaus with his sweet magic.

Not such a bad deal for a witch who just wanted to survive.


End file.
